


the things they left behind

by misterlipwig



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Ficlet, Reaction, idk - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-12
Updated: 2014-12-14
Packaged: 2018-03-01 03:48:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2758442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misterlipwig/pseuds/misterlipwig
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[Ficlet reaction to 10x09 : the things we leave behind] Sam felt stupid. Since when had Dean ever found the Three Stooges that funny? He didn't even like Monterrey jack cheese, Sam had expected him to bitch, not devour the sandwich like a starved dog. Sam should have recognized that faux enthusiasm immediately. How often had he brimmed with the exact same false happiness?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

His feet were flat on the floor, his eyes unfocused, as his mind tumbled. So much blood, so much goddamn blood, how long had it been since he'd seen something that violent just for the sake of violence? And Dean, dazed in the middle, on his knees and out of his mind, only a bit of red on his face. His skin blazed with sweat and the entire room reeked of death and iron.  
  
Claire's shriek behind him brought him back and Sam glanced behind to see her disappear in Castiel's arms. When he looked back, Dean was staring through him, not at him, and Sam ran to his brother. Dean's green eyes were distant and glazed as Sam's hands clutched his jaw.  
  
The blood on Dean's face was sticky beneath his clammy fingers and Sam couldn't stop himself from begging.  
  
"I didn't mean to." Dean could only keep repeating the same thing, his voice hollow  
  
It had happened so quick.  
  
Sam Winchester generally had what one could consider an iron stomach, but right now it felt more like a slippery slope of horror. This morning, and Dean's uncharacteristically good mood lately, made sense now and Sam felt stupid. Since when had Dean ever found the Three Stooges that funny? He didn't even like Monterey jack cheese, Sam had expected him to bitch, not devour the sandwich like a starved dog. Sam should have recognized that faux enthusiasm immediately. How often had he brimmed with the exact same false happiness?  
  
The shower droned on behind him and Sam laid back on his bed. The room was painted a particularly obnoxious shade of salmon, with too many teal (teal?) accents. Claire had been a day's trip from the bunker, and merely thinking about driving home right now made Sam's eyes hurt. He wanted to leave, to go talk to Cas, to do something other than stew in his own thoughts, but to leave Dean alone right now practically demanded trouble.  
  
His eyes glanced to the window, curtain pulled over of course. Dean had been pulling the curtains shut for awhile now, no matter how much Sam bitched about the darkness. He couldn't let Dean sequester himself in shadows.  
  
He huffed, something between exasperation and sardonic mirth. The parallels that he and his brother walked were too much sometimes, even for him.  
  
 _We still don't learn._  
  
A tiny voice chimed in immediately: **We? Or Dean?**


	2. Chapter 2

The bathroom door opened with a metal creak. Dean, in an a-shirt and boxers, went straight to his bed and collapsed on it like a bag of oil-logged sand.

Minutes passed.

"Dean." Sam's voice was too thin.

Dean grunted. "I'll be fine, Sam," he sounded far away. "Is - uh," he paused to clear his throat. "Are you hungry?"

"Are you?"

"No. Maybe. I need a drink. Claire's probably starving."

"We're not leaving this room until you talk."

"Talk about _what_?" Dean reached across the bed for his duffel and began to dress himself, his movements jerky as he rose to his feet, as if he were a puppet with a drunken master. He kept himself turned away, back to his brother, and yanked a black long-sleeved shirt over his head.

**He's hiding the Mark.**

Sam had seen it earlier, at "Randy's" house, scarlet and raised and almost screaming off of Dean's flesh. He made a mental note to ask Castiel about it later, about whether or not the angel could tangibly feel the Mark as a presence.

"That creepy fuck was going to rape Claire, and those other creepy fucks were going to let him! They were human garbage, Sam! They didn't..." Dean faced Sam, his face scrunched up in a snarl, but Sam resisted the urge to stand up.

**Probably not the best idea to answer his aggression.**

"What, Dean? They didn't deserve to live?" Sam's words were soft around the edges but still firm, direct without being too accusing. "When do we get to decide that? Us, of all people?"

Dean was closer, only a little bit, and his fists had started to clench. His face twisted in a frown.

"I warned them. When you left, the two clowns downstairs came at me and mister rapist upstairs snuck up behind and knocked me with a bottle or something."

"Yeah?" Sam challenged, "A human snuck up on you? A human. Snuck up on you." He couldn't keep the skepticism out of his voice and mentally berated himself, "The man who escaped Purgatory, and a human snuck up on him."

"I told them, Sam, I warned them. They tried to gank me anyway," Dean had turned away, but kept his shoulders squared toward Sam.

"So the guy tied to the chair tried to gank you?"

For this, Dean had no answer.

"I'm not buying it, Dean. I'm not oblivious, and I'm not stupid. You put yourself in that situation on purpose. You baited them. I've seen you when you get hit, with the Mark, and lose your shit - there is no way you could have warned them. Not unless you had been expecting that blow. And you know it." Sam's chest heaved with adrenaline and he hovered an arm's length away from his brooding brother.

"You don't know a damn thing." That voice. That sounded entirely too familiar, and images of Dean with black eyes crashed in the back of his mind. "Dean-" Sam reached his arm out, only to have it pushed away immediately.

"Stop. Just, just stop."


End file.
